Miami Heat to play Atlanta Hawks in first round. How the teams matched up this season
The Heat, knocked out of the playoffs last year by one Eastern Conference finalist (the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks), will open the postseason on Sunday against last season’s other Eastern finalist.
The top-seeded Heat learned Friday night that its opening-round opponent will be the Atlanta Hawks, who claimed the eighth seed by beating the Cavaliers, 107-101, on Friday night in a play-in game in Cleveland.
The Heat’s first-round series opens at 1 p.m. Sunday at FTX Arena, with Game 2 scheduled for 7:30 on Tuesday evening. TNT and Bally Sports Sun will televise both games.
The series then shifts to Atlanta for Game 3 on Friday night at 7 on ESPN and Bally and Game 4 on Sunday night at 7 on TNT.
In the Hawks, the Heat gets an offensively-gifted, ignitable opponent with an elite scorer in Trae Young, who scored 38 to carry Atlanta past Cleveland on Friday, including 32 points in the second half. But Miami also will face a flawed team that is often delinquent defensively.
The Hawks this season allowed 113.7 points per 100 possessions, which was 26th in the league and worst among playoff teams.
The Heat, conversely, ranked fourth in that defensive rating category, yielding 108.4 points per 100 opponent possessions.
What’s more, the Hawks’ best interior defender and rebounder, center Clint Capela, left Friday’s game with a hyperextended knee, leaving his status in question for Sunday.
The Heat won the season series, 3-1.
Miami beat Atlanta twice – 115-91 and 124-118 – in a three-day span in January. The Hawks won 110-108 in Atlanta 10 days after the second of those meetings.
Miami won their only recent game, 113-109, on April 8 in Miami.
The Heat shot 50.9 percent from the field and 39.7 percent on three pointers in the season series against the Hawks.
Bam Adebayo averaged 22.5 points and 6.0 rebounds against the Hawks but missed two games in the season series.
Tyler Herro averaged 20 per game in three games against Atlanta, and Jimmy Butler averaged 18.7 points in the three games.
The Heat was 14-2 with Max Strus starting, and three of his starts were wins against Atlanta. He averaged 12.5 points against Atlanta, sinking 12 of 26 three-pointers.
Kyle Lowry averaged 12.3 points in three games against Atlanta, with an assist-to-turnover ratio (16 to 8) that isn’t up to his standards.
Defensively, the emphasis naturally starts with slowing Young, who averaged 25.5 points against the Heat on 43.9 percent shooting while sinking 33 of 37 free throws.
But Miami held him to 31.4 percent shooting on threes this season (11 for 35).
And Young credited Heat coach Erik Spoelstra for switching us Miami’s defensive approach during his 3 for 12 second half shooting performance against the Heat during their game last week.
Hawks forward John Collins averaged 15.7 points and 7.7 rebounds in three games against the Heat, but his status is unclear because he has been out with a right foot sprain and plantar fascia tear, as well as a right ring finger sprain. He did not play on Friday against Cleveland.
Like Collins, Bogan Bogdanovic also averaged 15.7 points against the Heat this season.
As for Capela, he averaged 11.5 points and 10.0 assists in two games against Miami.
Atlanta shot 47 percent from the field against the Heat in the four games but committed 63 turnovers, compared with 89 assists.
In the four games, the Heat also had 63 turnovers, but Miami dished out 108 assists.
The Hawks finished 43-39 this season, 10 games behind the 53-29 Heat.
Heat players Strus and Gabe Vincent said they planned to watch Friday’s Cleveland-Atlanta game carefully, without distractions around them.
“I’m trying to get any tricks of the trade for each guy, see what they like to do, try to figure out which guy I’ll be matched up with and how they play,” Strus said after Friday’s practice. “It’s time to lock in. It’s stay inside and lock in on the personnel and who we’re going to be playing.”
Speaking after practice on Friday afternoon, Vincent indicated either opponent would be an interesting matchup.
“They’re fun to compete against, whichever side we play against,” Vincent said. “Defensively, they’re similar, with the drop big. Cleveland has a little more length. Atlanta has a little more offensive power. They’re both good teams in their own right, slightly different.”
One thing is clear: Snagging the No. 1 seed provided a clear advantage to Miami for two reasons beyond homecourt advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs:
Their opponent will have just one day to prepare for Game 1.
The Heat won’t play any of the East’s top three betting favorites - Milwaukee, Boston or Brooklyn - until the Eastern Finals. The Heat would play the Philadelphia-Toronto winner in round two.
“The Heat benefit somewhat from the bracket they’re in,” TNT analyst Stan Van Gundy said on a conference call on Friday. “That’s why you play for seeding. They’re the No. 1 seed. Of course you would rather play the eighth seed in the first round.
“Same thing in the second round [without having to play] Boston and Milwaukee. Boston has been the best team in the East for a long time. Since before the first of the year, they’ve been a lot better than anyone else. Not having to play them or the defending champions in the second round, it’s a big help.”
This story was originally published April 15, 2022 at 10:15 PM.
